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We had to wind in and out of clumps of trees, sometimes lying on our camels to get under branches, and finally, after going through thick woods, stopped at the foot of some mighty mountains. Though many of our camps on Mount Haghier and the expeditions therefrom were very delightful, I think this one, called Yehazahaz, was decidedly the prettiest.
If the dragon's-blood tree, with its close-set, radiating branches and stiff, aloe-like leaves, is quaint and some might be inclined to say ugly it has, nevertheless, its economic use; but not so its still quainter comrade on the slopes of Mount Haghier, the gouty, swollen-stemmed Adenium.
The eastern end of Sokotra is similar in character to the western, being a low continuation of the spurs of Haghier, intersected with valleys, and with a plateau stretching right away to Ras Momi about 1,500 feet above the sea-level.
Wild oranges, too, are found on Mount Haghier, of a very rich yellow when ripe, but bitter as gall to eat; and the wild pomegranate, with its lovely red flowers and small yellow fruit, the flannelly coating of which only is eaten, instead of the seeds, as is the case with the cultivated one.
It was low down on the southern slope of Mount Haghier; our tents were pitched in a grove of palm-trees at the meeting of two rushing streams; tangled vegetation hung around us on every side, and whichever way we looked we had glimpses of granite peaks and rugged hill-sides clad with dragon's-blood.
We found the Bedouin of Mount Haghier fond of dancing and playing their teherane, and also peculiarly lax in their religious observances; and though ostensibly conforming to Mohammedan practice, they observe next to none of their precepts; and it is precisely the same with the Bedouin whom we met in the Gara mountains.
Certainly Tamarida is a pretty place, with its river, its lagoon, and its palms, its whitewashed houses and whitewashed mosques, and with its fine view of the Haghier range immediately behind it.
The glory of Mount Haghier is undoubtedly its dragon's-blood tree (Dracænia cinnabari), found scattered at an elevation of about 1,000 feet and upwards over the greater part of Sokotra. Certainly it is the quaintest tree imaginable, from 20 feet to 30 feet high, exactly like a green umbrella which is just in the process of being blown inside out, I thought. One of our party thought them like huge green toadstools, another like trees made for a child's Noah's Ark. The gum was called kinn
Three considerable streams run from southward of Mount Haghier, fertilising three splendid valleys, until the waters, as the sea is approached, lose themselves in the sand. To the north there are many more streams, and inasmuch as the sea is considerably nearer, they all reach it, or, rather, the silted-up lagoons already alluded to.
The view at Suk over the wide lagoon fringed with palm groves, on to the jagged heights of Mount Haghier rising immediately behind, is, I think, to be placed amongst the most enchanting pictures I have ever seen.
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